


Blue Ribbon Pets

by arachnidstardis



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Humanstuck, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 19:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2663378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arachnidstardis/pseuds/arachnidstardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Egbert just really, really wants a pet, dorm rules be damned.  </p><p>Happy Birthday to 13LuckyWishes!!!!!! Hope it's fantastic :3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Ribbon Pets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [13LuckyWishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/13LuckyWishes/gifts).



“Dave!! Guess what I, a responsible adult, just purchased?” John slammed the door to his dorm room, holding a cage aloft.  His hair stuck up in several directions, Potter-esque, but flattened when he smoothed it with his free hand.  

His roommate looked up from his iPhone, undoubtedly in the middle of blogging intensely.  “Egbert, last week you brought home a squirrel you snatched out of the middle of the quad because you’re apparently the fucking squirrel whisperer, trademark pending. You can’t phase me anymore.”  He flicked his white hair off his glasses with a pale finger and kept tapping at his phone screen.  

John set the cage down on his bookcase gingerly and whirled around.  “Hermit crab!” he yelled, throwing his arms open and beaming.  

“I swear to god, Egbert, if I’m incarcerated in College Reslife Jail because of you and your incessant pet splurging I swear I will have Terezi lick everything you love,” Dave said, emphasizing the words “College Reslife Jail” slightly with his voice rather than using air quotes, as his thumbs were now firmly glued to his phone.  

“Whatever, Dave.  I’m naming her Casey!” He turned back to the cage and cooed at the tiny crab inside.   

After about twenty solid minutes of making tiny noises at his crab (Dave had by that point rolled onto his side with his pillow over his head), John picked up the cage again, sliding it onto the top shelf of his closet and shutting it.  “Sorry, Casey, but it’s for the best.  I think the RA has a key or something.  See you after class!”  He turned to Dave.  “Don’t eat my crab while I’m gone!!”  

\---

John came back later to find a violently fuchsia square of paper taped to the door, which read “FLOOR MEETING TONIGHT AT 6:15 IN THE TV ROOM. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY” in large block letters, and inexplicably was edged with tiny hearts and... Were those squids?  John shook his head and unlocked the door.  

“Dave, we have to go to a floor meeting in like an hour.  Want to grab dinner first?”

There was a muffled slurping noise from Dave’s bed as he shoveled ramen into his mouth with two chopsticks.  He paused.  “Uh,” he attempted to say around the noodles half-hanging out of his mouth.  

John waved his hand and threw his bag down on the bed.  “As long as they aren’t Dorito flavored, it’s all fine, Dave. I’ll be back in ten!!”  He walked back out, letting the door slam.  

Dave picked up the wrapper for the ramen flavor packet, which read “CHEETOS (R) FLAVORED. SELL BY 9/15/99.”  He slurped the rest of the noodles into his mouth and resolved to rethink thanking his bro for the rad supply of ramen.

\---

At 6:17, John snuck into the back of the floor lounge, dumping the last of his bag of fries into his mouth, and observed what was going on.  There was a tall, dark-skinned woman with violently pink dreadlocks standing on a low chair, gesticulating wildly as she reiterated what had been said at the fire and safety meeting earlier that year.  She was one of the RAs, Feferi, and John guess she had been the one to hand-edge the note on their door with the hearts and squids, as her tank top had a smiling octopus on it, and some of the beads in her hair were fish-shaped.  Listening to her speak, John determined that someone had pulled the ol’ “microwave ramen without water” stunt, presumably while drunk, and Reslife subsequently was upset with all of the students.  She also had a slightly irking habit of sprinkling marine-related words and puns throughout her speech.  

“And that’s it for the fire and safety reminder!! Thanks, everybubbly! If you could please listen to your other RA, that’d be shell!!”

Feferi stepped down from the chair, and a shorter man stepped up, muttering something to her.  John was pretty sure his name was Karkat.  He looked like he might have been black, but his skin was lighter and peppered with freckles, and his disgruntled expression was further intensified by his scraggly reddish-orange eyebrows and mop of matching hair.  Curls fell into his face as he stood up, which he brushed out of the way absentmindedly.  

“Okay, you moronic sacks of shit.  It has come to the attention of my nigh-divine superiors that you shitstains have been leaving your food-smeared dishes in the kitchen sink for weeks on end without maturing out of apparent infancy and cleaning up after yourselves.  This is your final warning before we lock up the kitchen and I drop the key into the river, shedding a single tear for what might have been if you could have only unwedged your heads from your asses and seen the light of maturity.”  

Karkat took a breath, crossing his arms and surveying the crowd.  “In other cleanliness news, an unfriendly reminder that pets are most definitely, one hundred percent NOT ALLOWED in the residence halls is apparently necessary.  I don’t know which one of you dickmunchers let loose a squirrel last week with a bow around its neck, but even if a wild, untamed, tiny beast such as a squirrel from the quad counted as a pet, which it most definitely does not, it still wouldn’t be allowed in here.  Follow the god damned rules for the rest of the semester, and you can move into the apartment you’ve always dreamed of wasting your money on until you’re broke.”  

As Karkat stepped down, John shot Dave a look that John meant to mean, “I know you let the squirrel out of the room, you bastard,” but mostly just looked like he wanted to murder Dave with his own phone.  

The roommates met up at their door, and John let them in.    
  
“Please tell me you aren’t going to do anything to dear, sweet Casey,” he said as he checked on the cage in his closet, cooing at the hermit crab.

Dave snorted and crawled back up onto his bed.  “I won’t touch your crab, don’t worry. In fact - “

There was a knock on the door.  John glanced wide-eyed at Dave, who just flicked his hand at the door.  He gulped and looked through the peephole, only to see no one there.  

“Well, that’s weird,” John said, swinging the door open.  

“What’s weird?”

John jumped off the ground slightly.  Karkat was standing slightly off the side of the doorframe, arms crossed and an eyebrow raised.  

“Uh, hey, Karkat! What brings you here?” John backed up a bit, letting Karkat enter the room.  He closed the door behind him, standing with his arms crossed in the niche where the door was just before the start of the room proper.  It would have been more intimidating had John not been just over a foot taller than Karkat.  

Karkat tightened his arms a bit and leveled a glare up at John.  “You seemed pretty shocked when I mentioned that squirrel earlier, Egbert.  Anything you have to say?”

“Haha, what?” John leaned back on the wall with one arm, gesturing with the other.  “Karkat, that was hilarious! Whoever did that sure is a prankster, but I know better than to break the rules!”  He winked at Karkat, whose feathers would have been resoundingly unruffled if he were a bird.  

[ ](http://imgur.com/cU3zPBd)

“Fine, but if you do know who decided to shit all over my day by doing that, please let me know.” Karkat opened the door and stalked down the hallway, leaving the door to slam shut on its own.  

John sank to the ground.  “Whew!! I’m so glad he didn’t ask to come in.  That would have been a disaster!”

“We definitely can’t have that,” Dave deadpanned from his bed.  

“Please don’t turn into Rose on me, Dave,” John pleaded.  

His roommate laughed, once.  “No promises.”

\-----

For the rest of the week, John kept seeing Karkat out of the corner of his eye whenever he entered his room, walked through the lobby, or occasionally around the rest of the campus.  Once, he swore he saw Karkat outside of his window looking in, which should have been impossible given that they were on the fourth floor.  

“You’re fucking paranoid,” was Dave’s only response.  

After nine days, John began to relax.  Karkat must have given up once he realized that I couldn’t possibly have a pet in here without it making noise.  He still kept seeing him, though, hovering around the end of the floor near John.  

And then there was another knock at the door.  

“Well, fuck.”  John hopped up to answer the door, pushing Casey’s cage back with one quick shove before turning the door handle.  

Karkat loomed as much as someone who was that short could loom in the doorway, glowering.  

“Egbert,” he started, looking down at the tile underneath his boots.  “Do you want to maybe get coffee?”

John stood still for a moment.  “I mean, I have a Keurig right here in my room...?”

Dave snorted.  “He’s asking you on a date.” He laughed again under his breath and tapped at his phone, presumably updating Rose on what an idiot John was.  

“Oh!” John grinned.  “Sure, Karkat!”

Karkat blanched.  “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, let me grab my jacket!!” John bounded over to his chair and grabbed a sweatshirt, shooting Dave a look when he was turned away from Karkat.  “We’ll be back soon, Dave”

“Wait, now?”

“Yes, now! C’mon, Karkat, live a little.”

John all but pushed Karkat out the door, grinning.  Dave looked up at John’s closet to see Casey happily waving her eye stalks as John chatted at Karkat all the way down the hallway.  

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is finished for now unless I suddenly get an idea for what I'd have them do next, but it's supposed to be a bit ambiguous. The main goal was red-headed Karkat anyways. Thanks for reading!


End file.
